


E is for Ego

by Thraesja



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Ageism, Alphabet Soup Challenge, Gen, Humor, Team
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:11:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thraesja/pseuds/Thraesja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was not about Jack's ego.</p>
            </blockquote>





	E is for Ego

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Jack Alpha-Bits (Alphabet Soup) organized by SG Fig Newton, lo, many years ago. A short, gen, Jack-centric story for every letter of the alphabet can be found [here](http://sg-fignewton.livejournal.com/89973.html). Also, please check out Fig's fics, metas, and recs at her [live journal](http://sg-fignewton.livejournal.com/).
> 
> Thank you to Amaranth Traces for her as always excellent beta.

"This is not about my ego."   
  
Daniel spared him a glance from the dancing girls. "Of course it isn’t." which Jack translated as Daniel-speak for "Of course it is."   
  
"This is about inappropriate stereotyping."   
  
"Uh huh."   
  
"Downright bigotry."   
  
"Yep."   
  
"Just because I have a few grey hairs doesn’t mean I’m..." He waved a hand in the air, searching for the best word.   
  
"Old?" Daniel supplied.   
  
"Distinguished," Jack corrected with a glare that went completely unnoticed by the recipient and the rest of his team.   
  
The fact that the grey hairs in question--silver, the distinguished part of him insisted--were caused by said ungrateful team was not lost on Jack.   
  
Sadly, the fact that he was currently wearing a pink dress couldn’t be lost either.   
  
"It’s, uh, it’s regal," Carter had said when he’d first put it on after a long argument with Daniel, who’d already argued inefficiently--and in _suff_ iciently--with the natives.   
  
"It’s puce."   
  
"Sort of a light aubergine," Daniel added.   
  
"This is why people wonder about you, Daniel." Jack looked down at the robe, ignoring Daniel’s mutter about hypocrites in puce houses. "It looks like a bottle of Pepto Bismol with a shot of blue Curaçao in it."   
  
Carter’s lip curled in disgust. "Do I even want to know how you know what that would look like, sir?"   
  
"You do not," Teal’c said, which reminded Jack that they’d agreed never to speak of the incident again.   
  
This was rapidly becoming another of those moments.   
  
The natives of P2W-280 were an interesting bunch. Despite having a trinium-reinforced bunker in the centre of their village, they’d been nothing but friendly to his team. A little overly friendly, actually. Just not to Jack.   
  
Carter had a swarm of admirers bringing her gifts and tokens, from young women who obviously wanted to  _be_  her to young men who obviously wanted to  _do_  her, though there was probably some overlap between the two groups. She was now sporting some orchid-type flowers in her hair and a striking set of bracelets on her wrists.   
  
Daniel had his own avid following, dancers included, though in his case it was mostly young women who wanted to do the doing. The only ‘jewellery’ he’d been given was the set of twenty-year-old twins he had wrapped around his forearms.   
  
Then there was Teal’c, who would have to beat his admirers off with a stick just to fit back through the gate. Bastard.   
  
And Lucky Jack was stuck with a toothless old biddy he’d dubbed ‘Matilda’, who had a profound love of tuneless singing and trying to feel him up. Apart from a penchant for making mud pies, the only thing she had going for her was that puce suited her skin tone far better than it did Jack’s. What you could see of it through the mud that covered her from head to toe, anyway.   
  
To be fair, Jack also had a sweet young thing who kept bringing him what looked like pre-chewed meat. Jack strongly suspected she was the local equivalent of a geriatric nurse. He’d tried flirting with her, but she’d just patted his head and batted her eyelashes at Teal’c.   
  
Since when was Jack too old for a coy smile or an inappropriate leer?   
  
The fact that Don Teal’c over there was twice his age only added insult to injury.   
  
Carter wandered over to Jack and Daniel, her attention on a pink-dressed old man who was doggedly tapping alien Morse code into the stump of a tree.   
  
"Think it’s something like Alzheimer’s?" Daniel asked.   
  
Carter watched the man for another moment before shaking her head. "Not sure." She glanced at Matilda and then at a 50-something-year-old woman who was obsessively dressing and redressing a cloth doll. "Seems pretty prevalent, whatever it is."   
  
"Perhaps," Teal’c said. "There is a toxin in the environment that builds up as these people age."   
  
Carter nodded. "Or a genetic condition of the entire population. If it only strikes the aged--"   
  
"Hey!" Jack glared at her.   
  
"Sorry, sir. The  _distinguished_ \--"   
  
Jack’s glare was clearly losing some of its threat. He blamed the puce.   
  
"--then there’d be limited selection pressure against it."   
  
Jack huffed. "Look, is any of this going to procure us some trinium in the near future?"   
  
They glanced at each other. Daniel opened his mouth in what would no doubt be a valid, if long-winded, argument.   
  
Jack raised a finger to head him off. "More importantly, will it get me out of this dress?"   
  
"Robe," Daniel corrected.   
  
"Daniel?"   
  
"No."   
  
"Then let’s forget it and move on to conversations that will. Get the trinium, I mean. Though feel free to work on the dress part as well."   
  
Daniel and Teal’c began talking to the locals in a strange mixture of pidgin Goa’uld and hand waving, and Jack found himself growing bored. Negotiations between peoples without a common language were even more tedious than the regular type. So it was something of a relief to Jack when a warning cry arose from the forest.   
  
Jack looked toward the source of the commotion to see one of the young men who’d been panting after Carter come running flat out toward them. The reaction of the villagers was instantaneous. Parents gathered up their children. Everyone ran for the bunker in the village centre, tugging at Daniel, Carter, and Teal’c to do the same.   
  
Not at Jack, though. He just followed in their wake.   
  
Good thing too, because a giant, feathered...thing came tromping out of the forest just moments later. It was a nightmare cross between a T-rex, an ostrich, and the Labrador from his childhood, though he doubted that Max would have appreciated the comparison.   
  
It looked mean. And hungry. He could see why the villagers had built the bunker.   
  
Peering out through the grated windows, Jack watched as the creature tromped around the forest edge, sniffing at one of the huts before yawning and displaying some impressive looking canines. Maybe Max wouldn’t have been so insulted.   
  
After the natives conducted what appeared to be a head count, they all settled down to wait. They were surprisingly calm, considering the size and obvious carnivorous tendencies of the creature. Maybe there was nothing to worry about.   
  
Jack couldn’t help but notice he was the only person in puce in the bunker. "Where are the old people?" he hissed to Daniel.   
  
Daniel blinked and looked around, frowning. He asked a halting question of one of the girls still orbiting him.   
  
She answered with a smile and a stream of words Jack could tell Daniel wasn’t really following. He shrugged at Jack. "All I got was ‘safe’."   
  
"As in ‘they’ll be safe’ or as in ‘they make us safe by being a buffet for the monster’?"   
  
Daniel’s response was interrupted by a frantic whispering among their hosts. Jack’s geriatric nurse was gesturing wildly out the window at a mud-covered figure ambling around outside without a care in the world.   
  
Crap. Matilda.   
  
Teal’c immediately stood and went to the door, clearly intending to retrieve the old biddy. The natives blocked the exit. When Teal’c tried to get around them, arguing, Jack assumed, that he be permitted to save Matilda, his many admirers flung themselves at him, holding him in place.   
  
The same thing happened to Daniel and Carter.   
  
No one stopped Jack. No one even thought about stopping Jack.   
  
Oh yeah. He could feel the love.   
  
He made it outside and ducked behind the closest hut, keeping an eye on Matilda’s wanderings. She was well camouflaged, somehow having found a way to get even more mud on herself. Unfortunately, she was still singing.   
  
The creature gave a snort as she got close enough for it to hear. It sniffed the air briefly, and then closed in on the oblivious woman, snarling.   
  
As soon as the thing was in range, Jack fired his weapon, waiting for it to go down in a spray of alien blood.   
  
Of course, under those feathers there just had to be ridiculously thick skin, didn’t there? Instead of dying spectacularly, the creature snarled again and turned its attention on Jack.   
  
Crap.   
  
The resemblance to a T-rex really kicked in as it came charging toward Jack. He emptied an entire clip into the thing, but to no avail, not even when he aimed at its gaping maw.   
  
Crap crap crap.   
  
Jack scrambled out of his hiding place for a futile dash for the bunker. He’d just started to run when the snarling behind him changed to a bewildered whine.   
  
He looked back as his fifteen-foot-tall attacker slid awkwardly to a halt. Its head reared back in unmistakable disgust. Then it turned tail and sprinted back into the forest as fast as its huge legs could carry it.   
  
Jack couldn’t help but sniff at his armpit.   
  
He didn’t really notice as the locals clambered around him, patting his head. He did notice Matilda’s hands on his butt, but he decided he’d be happier ignoring that.   
  
The walk back to the stargate was the worst part of the whole day.   
  
"So," Jack said. "We give a vague report on how got the treaty, and we never speak of this again. Agreed?"   
  
Daniel had that innocent look on his face that told Jack he was screwed. "Don’t you want the General to know that it was your actions that secured the trinium? Heck, that sort of thing looks good in a service record, doesn’t it, Sam?"   
  
Carter nodded a touch too enthusiastically for Jack’s liking. "Especially if we let them know how you managed even with your disadvantage, sir."   
  
"Yes. Despite facing ‘downright bigotry’ and certain death, you ran out there like the hero you are and chased away the monster. You rescued the damsel, Jack."   
  
Carter tried unconvincingly to cover her snort with a cough.   
  
"Of course, we can’t leave out the ingenious way in which you did it," Daniel continued, conspicuously not bursting into flames despite Jack’s best mental efforts. "Running right out there and impersonating the local equivalent of a... What was your interpretation, Teal’c? I couldn’t quite work it out."   
  
Luckily, Jack knew Teal’c was far too loyal a friend to help Daniel mock him.   
  
"I believe you would translate it as ‘stink bug’, Daniel Jackson."   
  
Traitor.   
  
Daniel snapped his fingers. "That was it! I bet no one at the SGC’s pulled a stink bug act before." Daniel hummed, actually hummed, as he savoured the moment. "A six-foot-long, giant, pink, flapping, alien stink bug."   
  
"You are not--wait. Flapping?"   
  
Teal’c nodded. "Your robe did billow most becomingly as you ran, O’Neill."   
  
He shouldn’t have asked. They walked in silence until the stargate came into view. Daniel started dialling.   
  
"We are not reporting this."   
  
Carter looked at him sideways. "You’re ordering us to falsify an official report? Wouldn’t that be...wrong, sir?"   
  
They’d done it before. Ribbing aside, they’d do it again. Jack would be fine.   
  
"Major Ferretti has offered a substantial reward for information regarding your next humiliating experience, O’Neill," Teal’c said, hesitating at the event horizon with Carter. "I believe these events qualify."   
  
Jack was doomed.   
  
Daniel smirked at him. "This is not about your ego, you know."   
  
Jack shook his head, resigned. "Of course it isn’t." 


End file.
